Swaroopanand Saraswati tenders apology for remarks against Sai Baba

Indore : Dwaraka Peeth Shankaracharya Swami Swaroopanand Saraswati on Thursday tendered an apology before the Indore bench of Madhya Pradesh High Court for his controversial statements on Shirdi’s Sai Baba.

With this, he requested the court to dispose of the petition against him. In June last year, Saraswati said, “Worshipping Sai Baba is a conspiracy to divide Hindus. Sai Baba should not be worshipped as he was a human being and not God, and temples in his name should not be built.”

“Sai Baba used to say Sabka Malik Ek (God is one for all). If so, why do the Buddhists and Jains worship separate gods?” Saraswati had said, but acknowledged Sai Baba as a “great man”.

“By building temples, Sai Baba’s disciples are making mockery of a great man, who was a human being and not a God.”

Founder of Luvkush Vihar Sai Mandi, Rajesh Bhai had filed a complaint petition against Saraswati in court seeking a case against the seer under Section 298 (deliberate intent to hurt religious sentiments) of IPC.

He had alleged that Saraswati had hurt religious sentiment of people through his remarks on Sai Baba.

A counsel of Saraswati filed an application before the HC on Thursday stating that the seer was sorry for the remarks.

Counsel of the petitioner, advocate Pradeep Gupta said Saraswati gave in writing to the court that his statements were not intended to hurt the religious sentiments of people, and he is apologetic if his statements had hurt the sentiments of the people.

Following Saraswati’s apology, the court asked both the parties to settle the case with mutual understanding.

Gupta said that they had withdrawn the petition as the matter is over for them after Saraswati’s apology.